On Presidents’ Day: Lincoln is King (Among freshman Republican congressmen, exluding Reagan)

I agree.

To answer your question, I am totally disabled...

I wish you the best, FRiend.

Now, back to the power of the IRS. The IRS owns me. The IRS has the power to imprison me, to take me from my home and separate me from my family if I don't comply with every aspect of their exorbitant demands. It has the same power over my child and spouse. And, not only has the IRS repeatedly raped every dollar I've ever earned, it rapes my child's and my spouse's earnings too. Speaking of rape, here's an order for it:

HDQRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF

New Orleans, May 15, 1862.

As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.

By command of Major-General Butler:

GEO. C. STRONG,

Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff.

Bottom line up front the southern states succeeded to keep their institution of slavery.

Not true. Arkansas recognized the unconstitutionality of using force to coerce seceded states back into the Union. She seceded due to Lincoln's demand for troops to invade other sovereign states. From the Arkansas Ordinance of Secession:

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union now existing between the State of Arkansas and the other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."

Whereas, in addition to the well-founded causes of complaint set forth by this convention, in resolutions adopted on the 11th of March, A.D. 1861, against the sectional party now in power in Washington City, headed by Abraham Lincoln, he has, in the face of resolutions passed by this convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas:

http://www.constitution.org/csa/ordinances_secession.htm#Arkansas

You are right I painted with to broad a brush. The reason for south carolina seceding was due to slavery. I have not read all of the southern states declarations of secession.

This does still not change the fact of why south carolina seceded and why President Lincoln called up troops. It seems curious to me that the arkansas convention seemed to have no problem with south carolina firing on a federal fort but were willing to secede because they had been asked to provide troops to quell the insurrection.

I would also be interested in seeing the notes on the convention since the ordinance of secession alludes to additional well-founded causes of complaint that was set forth during the convention.

What's not to love?

You are right I painted with to broad a brush.

No sweat, nothing we aren't all guilty of at one time or another.

This does still not change the fact of why south carolina seceded and why President Lincoln called up troops.

You're right, it doesn't change the facts, but Lincoln was acting in conflict with the Constitution in calling for troops.

Here is Madison on use of force against a soveriegn state:

“Mr. MADISON, observed that the more he reflected on the use of force [by the federal govt against the States], the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively and not individually. — A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. He hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary, and moved that the clause be postponed. This motion was agreed to nem. con.”

Alexander Hamilton (an arch-federalist) on coercion and the use of force against a sovereign state:

"It has been observed, to coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single state. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war?"

"Suppose Massachusetts, or any large state, should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would they not have influence to procure assistance, especially from those states which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying state at war with a non-complying state; Congress marching the troops of one state into the bosom of another; this state collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against the federal head."

"Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government. But can we believe that one state will ever suffer itself to be used as an instrument of coercion? The thing is a dream; it is impossible."

What's not to love?

LOL! You gotta post the tune he's playing.

I just hope it isn’t “Welcome to the Jungle”.

“I think that picking Lincoln is intellectually dishonest and manipulative at worst or naive at best.”

Concisely and articulately put. Ironically, those were my first two choices, and I hadn’t yet picked a third. The Founding Fathers knew that they too would have been tried for treason if they had lost their war. They risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Sadly our leaders haven’t been that way for the better part of two centuries (one can argue some aspects of their favorites, though).

If you want to understand how the war came about, and what the intentions of the Lincoln administration were in regard to initiating it, you have to look at what was actually being done in the months leading up to Ft. Sumter.

After the seven states of the deep south seceded, many of them citing (in their declarations of independence) fears that the Northern Republican party would eventually threaten the existence of slavery, the politicians from the border states and north came together to work out a compromise that they hoped might lure the seceded states back into the federal union.

So, with the Representatives and Senators from the seven Confederate states no longer participating in the US Congress, both the House and Senate approved by the necessary two-thirds margins a proposed constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed the continued existence of slavery (in the states where it then existed) forever. At this point, to put it bluntly, if preserving slavery forever had been the primary goal of the seceded states, all they had to do in order to effect this was renounce the Confederacy, return to the USA, and along with all of the slave states and most of the free states, vote to amend the Constitution. The fact that the Northern congressmen and state governments were willing to do this, however, suggests very strongly that their invasion of the south had nothing to do with ending slavery.

In regard to President Lincoln, whose lifelong political agenda required that the Confederate states remain part of the USA and in compliance with federal law, he was in favor of this compromise as well, as he stated in his inaugural address.

“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

While the president’s feigned ignorance in regard to the specifics of the recently approved Corwin Amendment was entirely disingenuous, his support for it was not, and as the president would repeatedly say throughout the coming war, he was more than willing to make compromises on slavery if that’s what it would take to preserve or restore the union. To underscore this point, take a look at what the Emancipation Proclamation, decreed as an executive order in September 1862, actually said.

“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, (January 1, 1863) all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...”

As you can see, the Emancipation Proclamation was actually an ultimatum given to the Confederate States still waging their war for independence, and as with any ultimatum, if the recipients of this ultimatum had accepted its terms within a certain time frame (in this case the first day of the next year), then the punishment (in this case freeing the slaves) for rejecting the ultimatum would not go into effect. Had the Confederate States accepted the ultimatum and come back to the USA by January 1, 1863, they could have kept their slaves and then proceeded to ratify the Corwin Amendment, which had no time limits set to it and which had already been ratified by a couple northern states as a gesture of “good faith” to the South, amending the Constitution in order to guarantee that protection forever.

None of the Confederate States accepted the ultimatum, suggesting again that they were willing to risk the loss of their slaves if that was, ultimately, the gamble they had to take in order to achieve their political independence. Of course, had this same choice been given in late ‘64 or perhaps early ‘65 instead of 1862-63... my guess is they would have taken the deal, as by then their chances of actually winning their independence looked very grim.

Going back to the Lincoln’s inaugural, while he expressed in clear language that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists,” and he had “no lawful right to do so,” and “no inclination to do so,” he did clearly state why he would launch an invasion of the south.

“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.”

While President Lincoln said this in a way which implied that he wasn’t going to invade the south, what he was really saying was that he would invade the south, if the Confederate States refused to pay taxes to the US government. Think about that for a minute. If the Confederates refused to pay taxes to what they now considered a foreign government, they would be invaded by that foreign country.

Why was it so important to collect taxes from the southerners now part of the CSA that President Lincoln would threaten to invade them? The answer is really very simple if you look at the history of Lincoln’s political career and the logic of the situation from his (and many, but certainly not most at the time, northerners’ perspectives).

First, we must recall the history of Abraham Lincoln’s political career. While he was, like most Republicans, opposed to the further expansion of slavery into the western territories, he was not and had never been an abolitionist. In fact, on a few occasions, he even went out of his way to evoke hostility to the real abolitionists and their arguments, even ridiculing them and dismissing them publicly, repeatedly said that he did not regard blacks and whites as equals, and thought the best solution to the race problem, if slavery ever did come to an end, was to get them to leave the United States altogether. But for Lincoln, the issue of slavery (at any level) was not what he spent most of his life focused upon.

Instead, Lincoln spent most of his political career, first as a Whig and then as a Republican, working to establish the so-called “American System” of high protective tariffs, subsidies (called euphemistically “internal improvements”) for the railroad corporations, and the reestablishment of a national bank. Before we take a closer look at these issues, it is important to note, of course, that neither a national bank, subsidies for big business, nor protective tariffs are authorized by Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution.

During the middle of the 1800s Abraham Lincoln was, whenever he wasn’t playing government in either the Illinois state legislature or for a short time in the US Congress, one of the premier railroad company lawyers and lobbyists in the country, making a career out of lobbying state governments and the federal government to appropriate funds in order to subsidize the building of privately owned railroads (overwhelmingly in the northern states). In essence, we’re talking about corporate welfare here... socialism, except that we’re stealing from the poor (and middle class) to give to the rich instead of the other way around. Of course, to give taxpayer funds away to well connected big business (who will then bankroll the politicians who regularly vote them other people’s money), the government first has to tax the people.

This leads us back to the protective tariffs. First, regardless of how much taxpayer money the tariff brings in, protective tariffs were supported by Abraham Lincoln and other proponents of the “American System” partly because they, by hiking up so much the prices on imports, insulated (hence the moniker “protective” tariffs) big businesses in America (overwhelmingly in the northern states) from foreign competition. For this reason alone, it should not surprise anyone that some of the largest manufacturers in America, especially in the steel industry, lined up behind Lincoln and the Republicans. In fact, at the Republican convention in 1860 held in Pennsylvania, it was the steel manufacturers lining up behind candidate Lincoln and his staunch support for high taxes, that likely secured him the party’s nomination for President of the United States. While Lincoln and the Republicans loved high tariffs, however, the south, almost unanimously, did not. Because southerners did most of their trade with England they ended up paying, despite the fact that they comprised only about 30% of the American population, approximately 70% of the tax burden, in order to “protect” industries that were almost entirely non-existent in their section of the country. Not only did they find these taxes objectionable on moral grounds, southerners objected to them on constitutional grounds as well, given that Article 1 Section 8 declares that “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

Nonetheless, there was a fundamental connection between Lincoln and the Republicans support for high taxes and corporate welfare, and the south’s rejection of both. Back in those days, before we had income taxes, tariffs comprised about 90% of all federal revenues. To put it bluntly, southerners paid 70% of the taxes, so that the northerners in the US Congress could then turn around and give away southerner’s money, in the form of unconstitutional wealth transfer payments, to a bunch of well-connected corporate fat-cats in the north. Or to put it another way, the northern states overtaxed the southern states so that they could enrich themselves at the south’s expense.

Thus, when President Lincoln declared in his inaugural speech that he would only invade the south to “possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts” he was deadly serious and, from his perspective, not without reason. After all, imagine what would have happened if he had simply let the south go (and not tried to collect taxes from them), as most in the north (prior to Ft. Sumter) were calling for?

First, with the northern harbors charging 50% or higher protective tariffs (the US tariff) and the Confederate harbors charging only a modest (10-15%) revenue tariff, very quickly most foreign shipping to America would have shifted to the Confederate harbors. Almost overnight, the trade that regularly shipped to New York, Philadelphia, Boston and the remaining New England harbors would have diverted to Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, or Galveston, impoverishing the economies of the northern states in the process.

Second, without the ability to collect taxes from foreigners (enforce US tariffs inside Confederate territory), the US government would have been immediately denied the vast majority of its traditional revenues. Not only would this have nearly bankrupted the US government, it would have forced them to raise taxes on their own people in order to pay for all of their redistributionist schemes like the railroad subsidies, rather than continuing to seize the wealth of their outnumbered former countrymen in the south for those purposes.

And to wrap up this post, that’s exactly what the Lincoln administration did during the war. Unable to finance both the war and their domestic policy priorities - such as the Pacific Railway Acts that subsidized the construction of the first transcontinental railroad - they enacted the first income tax in US history, which was of course, like almost everything Lincoln did during the war, unconstitutional as well.

Thank you for your exhaustive post. It’s an excellent jumping point for even the most ardent of ear stoppers, to jump off from, and begin their own research. Kudos, and again, THANK YOU!

From Lincoln's perspective he was not violating the constitution. The constitution clearly states that the president has the right to call up troops in the case of rebellion and insurrection.

The constitution is silent on secession and whether the constitution allowed it or not is moot at this point. The argument I am presenting is that south carolina seceded because of the slavery issue.

Was the average southern soldier fighting for the institution of slavery? No. Was the average northern soldier fighting to free the slaves? No. But this does not change the reason that the civil war was fought. I see many posts by freepers trying to distort this easily proven point. If you look at the history of this country slavery has always been an issue of contention. The argument has been made that it is about taxes or the differences between the people of the north and south.

If you look at our history you will see this is not the case. The missiouri compromise was not about taxes. One congressman did not bludgeon another congressman over the issue of taxes. The bloodshed in Kansas prior to the civil war was not a disagreement over taxes. John Brown did not attack harpers ferry because he wanted the south to pay more taxes. He was trying to forment a slave rebellion.

To say that that slavery was not the cause of the civil war is at best disingenuous and at worse an outright lie. I will let Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the confederacy, speak as to the cause of the civil war;

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

the “nation” that was founded with slavery at it’s core.

Really, when did you go to school?

The United States was founded with FREEDOM at its core. Slavery was illegal in more than half of the country.

Your statement is disgusting.

ML/NJ

From Lincoln's perspective he was not violating the constitution. The constitution clearly states that the president has the right to call up troops in the case of rebellion and insurrection.

It seems to me that Lincoln wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Either the states were still in the Union or they weren't. If they were still in the Union, expenditures Lincoln made w/o the authorization of Congress and expanding the army w/o Congressional authorization are constitutional violations. And, as I pointed out in an earlier post, Madison and Hamilton are both on record as to the use of force/coercion against a sovereign state. If the seceded states were not still in the Union, Lincoln still made expenditures and expanded the army w/o Congressional approval and called for the blockade of several Southern ports (an act of war) absent Congressional approval.

The constitution is silent on secession and whether the constitution allowed it or not is moot at this point. The argument I am presenting is that south carolina seceded because of the slavery issue.

I do not believe the 10th Amendment is a moot point, ever. My argument is why Arkansas seceded.

“From Lincoln’s perspective he was not violating the constitution. The constitution clearly states that the president has the right to call up troops in the case of rebellion and insurrection.”

In the words of Joe Wilson: “YOU LIE!”
____________________________________________________________
From the book, “Lincoln on Leadership”:

“Lincoln once attempted to convince his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, that it was a good idea for the government to issue interest-bearing currency as a means of raising money to support the war effort. Chase, however, objected to the proposal and argued that it was unconstitutional...[Lincoln told a story]...’Why, Chase,’ responded Lincoln, ‘I don’t intend precisely to throw the Virgin Mary overboard, and by that I mean the Constitution, but I will stick it in the hole if I can. These rebels are violating the Constitution in order to destroy the Union; I WILL VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION, if necessary, to save the Union - and I suspect, Chase, that our Constitution is going to have a rough time of it before we get done with this row.’ {Emphasis added].
____________________________________________________________

Lincoln knew well that he was violating the Constitution. He did it to preserve the Economic power gained by the overthrow of sovereign states. His “I’ll violate the Constitution, to save it” attitude, means that he not only didn’t care about the Constitution, he didn’t understand its purpose.

From my readings Lincoln and the congress said that the states were in rebellion. The states that were in rebellion had pulled their congressman from congress voluntarily. The US congress constitutionally raised an army to suppress the rebellion.

You are right about Madison and Hamilton would have supported secession. I would add Jefferson to that list. However, the constitution is silent on this unless you argue that it is implied by the 10th amendment.

When I stated that secession was now a moot point I meant it had been decided by the sword. The 10th is not a moot point but has been greatly limited due to the incorporation principle provided by the 14th amendment.

Can we at least agree that south carolina seceded because of slavery? Therefore the cause of the civil war was slavery. Without the institution of slavery there would have been no secession.

Here are a few more excerpts from the next three states that seceded;

Mississippi-
“In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

Georgia -
“ For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war.

Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.

The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation.”

Texas-
“The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery— the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits— a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.”

You are correct on why Arkansas secceded, though again I would be interested in reading any notes from the secession convention. I would be surprised if slavery was not mentioned during it.

LOL! Since I didn't notice it until you pointed it out, I'm guessing I must have had a unionized teacher.

They might not have made us perfect spellers, but I doubt our teachers in the old days would have shown such a massive disregard for the electorally expressed will of the people as they have in Wisconsin.

For all the grief my mayhem brought to my 1st grade teacher, I cannot blame her if she became a Bolshevik. :)

A couple of years ago my mom came across a 2nd grade report card for me. The teacher’s note said that “(rockrr) keeps a messy desk”. Some things never change ;-)

You were just showing initiative in developing your natural talent at an early age. :)

Thank you for your most excellent post!!

Question - why are myths perpetuated in the US history that is taught to our children and repeated ad nauseum by the MSM and our fearless leaders? :)